I am one of those people who can prepare something to death. I mean I make a list, and then I check over it, I double check and sometimes even triple check. When it comes to writing a novel or an article, I outline, and then I research. I often end up with massive amounts of research in which only about half of it gets used and the rest gets tossed to the side and becomes a reminder of how much time I wasted over-preparing for something yet again.

I know that preparation is supposed to be a good thing and for most people it is but for those of us who can tend to use the preparation process as another stall tactic (procrastination) it can rob us of so much time that would be better spent just jumping into the project and getting started already. When am I going to learn that sometimes it really is better to just dive in (head first) and get it done. I spend so much time waiting for the right moment to come, for the right amount of money (or in most cases, any money), for the right person to partner with, for just the right amount of nerve to actually launch that business.

So much time I waste waiting and never actually doing any of the things I long to do. If I could go back and count how many accomplishments I could’ve been able to cross off my list had I not waited for some unknown right moment I would’ve already tackled most of that list by now and I would be much happier for it. If we could add up all of the countless hours that we have wasted on second guessing ourselves, and preparing everything to the point of exhaustion how many of our endeavors could we have already achieved?

You can never really prepare for everything, especially the curveballs that life throws you that you don’t even realize are coming. The best you can do is deal with things as they come and just go along for the ride. I think that is where I went wrong with this year’s plan. I over-plan and try to over-prepare everything, and worry so much about what money I don’t have to start this business that I have wanted to start for as long as I can remember. I am over-thinking everything, so much so that nothing is being done. I’ve got to just take a leap of faith and jump right in.

No one is every really 100% ready to begin the journey that will lead them into their destiny because the things that are most worth having are never really easy to attain. So if you are one of those people who over-prepares and stands on the edge of the curb waiting for all of the possible obstacles that could block your path before you actually cross the road leading to your destiny, stop waiting. If you stood by to let every obstacle pass you by before taking the chance to walk that road you may find yourself standing on that curb for a very long time. You may not be 100% ready, but what the hell, jump anyway!

I don’t think that there is a single person (at least not one that I’ve know) who likes to be rejected. It is not something that you look forward to and most people would avoid all instances that would mean that there was a guarantee that they will be rejected. As a writer, it is almost inevitable (unless you are extremely lucky) that you will be rejected in your career at some point, whether it be with the submission of an article, a blog post, a short story, a novel to a publisher, or even by an agent that you want to represent you. As a writer you have to be prepared to be rejected, so much so that you should probably just prepare a box for the stacks of rejection letters that you are bound to receive.

Being as though it is almost June and six months into the year that I thought was really going to be a turnaround year for me I’ve been looking over all of my lists of things I was supposed to accomplish this year. I was supposed to live a more fearless life this year and I was supposed to have a more productive year. Looking at my list and just how little I am able to check off, I would say that I have not lived up to my own expectations for the year thus far.

A big part of my list was to submit my next novel to agents and publishers and also to start submitting more articles to local newspapers. A huge part of the reason that I have yet to submit my work is because I fear the rejection letters that I will be sent. I know that you are not supposed to assume that your work will be rejected but it is really hard not to prepare for the worst instead of hoping for the best. The thought of someone saying my work isn’t good enough is like someone telling me that I am not good enough and that is what hold me back.

I was reading the Writer’s Digest magazine and in the back of every issue they highlight a rejection letter to a famous author (when they weren’t so famous) and you get to see that even the authors that are seen as the greatest authors of all have been rejected. I have read many of these letters but the one that shocked me the most to read was the one I read for Charles Dickens “Great Expectations”. In it the editor essentially called his work boring and too descriptive, on top of telling Charles Dickens that he was seemingly a pervert and that this novel was only good for burning in a fireplace.

I felt like it was so harsh and by far the worst one I have seen but it also made me think, “well it had to be worth something in this editor’s eyes because this letter was so personal for it to be a rejection letter.” You could tell by reading it that this was not a book that (as bored as she said she was with it) the editor just read for a little bit and got midway through and then tossed it in the rejection pile. Details mentioned in the rejection letter suggested that they apparently thought enough of it to read it all the way through. It was exactly the kind of rejection letter that I had always said I never wanted but now I’m not so sure.

In reality I should be looking at rejection letters as a statement of what it would say about me. It would say that I put myself out there, as difficult as it is to be vulnerable, I would have been brave and fearless about my work. In some cases rejection letters (when personalized instead of generic) means that someone thought enough of your work to actually write the rejection letter with their own personal touches. If even the greatest authors have been rejected, what would make me any different? I have to get past that fear because it is only holding me back even further.

The sting of rejection is what you have to come to grips with when you are willing to take risks. Otherwise, all that means is that you never took the risk. Sure that means that you won’t have to worry about feeling rejected, but you also won’t run the risk of actually being accepted either.

Everything is a risk in life, not just the bad but the good as well. You can never really enjoy the good that is due to come your way unless you are willing to accept the possibility of things turning out bad. So the next time I feel that fear of rejection when I want to submit my work, I am also going to put into perspective the good that I might be inviting my way as well.

I happened to tune into another Joel Osteen sermon (you can view it at the bottom of the post) on Sunday and once again it was exactly the right message at exactly the right time that I needed to hear it. He spoke to people who are having setbacks and feeling discouraged and who are, in a sense, questioning “why do these things keep happening to me” or “why isn’t what I’m doing enough”. It was how I have been feeling for the last week and a half now and I have to say that what Joel Osteen spoke about made a lot of sense.

He said that you can’t isolate all of the different moments in your life and dissect what was wrong in each moment because separately they will look unfair and they will look like some of the worst moments in your life. However, collectively, once all of the pieces have come together, it will all somehow make sense. He used the example of the different moments we go through, good or bad, being the ingredients in the overall recipe for our lives.

Just as with baking a cake or cookies, separately the ingredients are just plain ingredients that don’t seem like they would taste like much on their own, but once they are all mixed together, they make something wonderful. If you think about it, a cookie mix, without the baking soda to make it rise, just comes out flat because there is an ingredient missing that was necessary for everything to make sense. When I think of it like that it somehow makes all of the pieces fit. With all of the experiences that we go through in life, we have to know that they are somehow necessary in order for you to get to the next level of your destined path.

Osteen said “God is the master chef and the recipe for your life has already been established. God has planned your days for good from beginning to end and he knows exactly what to add and when to add it. He’s going to put in just the right amount at just the right time so that you can become everything that he has created you to be. God has ingredients coming your way that are going to thrusts you to a new level and he has ingredients that are going to cause everything to make sense.”

When he said that he referenced it to that bad childhood, that opportunity that didn’t come to fruition, that loved one that walked out of your life right when you needed them (or so you thought), that job you lost that you thought was going to be the answer to you prayers, that bad break-up that you are still not quite over, the money that you were counting on that didn’t come through at the time that you really needed it the most. All of these “bad breaks” don’t make sense on their own and they are down right frustrating, but once you do achieve the purpose that you are destined to fulfill, it will somehow all make sense.

I have this passion (aside from writing of course) to find a way to do something about the bullying epidemic that has gotten out of control in society over the last decade or so. But had I not gone through the bullying that I went through in school or even the bullying and abuse that I had to endure from my own mother at home, I might not find myself headed in that direction and feeling the need to be an agent of change in that area. It is because of those experiences that I went through that make me want to do so much to change this world and to be a part of making it better. They didn’t make sense at the time that I was going through them, but they are all starting to make much more sense now.

Each moment is like the ingredient to the recipe of our lives. They can often be discouraging and disheartening but that is because we keep isolating them instead of mixing them all together and looking at the dish as a whole. Some people are bitter on life because they have not waited for all of the ingredients to come together. Final word from Joel Osteen, “God always ends on all is well” so if all is not well in your life that means that it is not the end, keep moving forward, there’s another ingredient coming.

There is this mantra that people have come to live by that is supposed to help motivate them to keep moving forward and not get hung up on what they haven’t achieved. “Fake it until you make it” is what people tell you to do when you are trying to achieve certain goals that you haven’t quite reached yet. So often I have been told that even if I don’t have it all together and I haven’t achieved all of the goals that I am striving towards that I should just essentially pretend that I have made it, that I have it all together, and that I am already a success even though I still have a long way to go.

It sounded like good advice and I completely understand what good intentions are meant by this mantra. I have even repeated this advice to others because I firmly believed that it was the right attitude to have. Now I’m not so sure. I mean I don’t think that you are ever supposed to lose sight of the goals and dreams that you are moving towards accomplishing but I am not so sure that faking it is the right way to really go about it.

I read a blog post last night about how the mantra of faking it could actually be the reason your message is falling on deaf ears (so to speak). It made me think, if I am trying to promote brand ME and I want people to connect to me, do I want people to get the me that I am pretending to be, that I think that they want, or do I want people to connect to the real me, the me that just doesn’t have it all together yet. If I am not being authentic, then what is the point of me trying to get my words out there and to connect with readers?

Everyone wants to be accepted for who they are, imperfections and all, but how can that be possible if we are all too busy pretending to be what it is we wish we were, what we think people want us to be. No real good comes of pretending to be someone other than yourself and it is just deceptive to think that we have to put on this false pretense. So I thought that I would real today (I try to be real most of the time but sometimes I hide behind my insecurities) and share things I don’t normally say out loud.

I am a writer, true enough, but I do not have it all together. I am not as successful as I sometimes try to pretend to be. Sometimes, frankly I am just winging it with this whole writing thing and I don’t have even half of the answers. I don’t write as much as I should. I don’t seem to have a knack for this social media thing so my name is not as well known as I had hoped it would be at this point in my life.

To be completely honest, some days I really have no idea what I am doing, I am just trying to be the best writer that I know how to be and I am trying to hold on to that passion that I have for writing. There are days when trying to focus on the business side of being a writer is so frustrating I start to think about never writing again. I question regularly, despite my saying that I know writing is my true purpose, if maybe writing has already served its purpose in my life and that maybe (and only in moments of temporary insanity do I really believe this) it is time to let it go.

I try not to admit those things even to myself so saying them here for everyone to see is hard for me but I feel better having done it. I feel like there has to be someone else out there that gets it and are just as tired as I am of pretending to be something that they are not and who understand where I am coming from. Isn’t it less pressure to just be yourself? As imperfect as you might be, even if you feel like everything is falling a part, be the best version of yourself that you can be. Let’s not fake it until we make it, let’s just make it by being real.

Yesterday I had a day where it seemed like I just kept hitting the wall. Just when it looked like I was starting to get close to that light that lets me know things are going to be okay I felt like another boulder (not a rock) was dropped in my way. I felt like just giving up and I took a moment to cry a little (I’m not ashamed to admit that I cry when I get upset) because honestly I started to feel like things were hopeless.

But today was a new day and with the tragedy that has just taken place in Oklahoma with the devastation of the tornados it really puts things into perspective. I can’t take the gifts that I have been given for granted just because of a moment that seems like it can’t be fixed. I have to be grateful that I still have more moments to fix things. A moment of frustration is not going to keep me from tunneling through to that light on the other side of the wall that keeps blocking me from my dreams and my purpose.

I opened my latest Tyler Perry email today and there on the screen in front of me (right on time as usual) was a message to all of the frustrated dreamers. In essence, he was letting all of the dreamers out there who are hitting that wall know, to keep powering through until we breakthrough to the other side of that wall. That while we are tunneling through that wall, to be grateful for the things that we have to go through on the way, yes even those things that make us want to rip our hair out and scream, because it will be those things that make us stronger and more prepared for when we finally do have our breakthrough moment.

So often we make it all the way to that wall and then we give up right before the breakthrough (just like in the picture above) because we didn’t see it coming. Then we just end up missing our moment, our opportunity and all of the opportunities that were supposed to follow. We (yes me included) have to stop giving up so easily. Just because things seem hopeless at the moment, we can’t just stop pushing through because that light that we are looking for could literally be right around the corner when we decide it’s just too hard to keep going.

Tyler Perry included a prayer in his email for the frustrated dreamers“God, help me hold on, help me to get to what I dream of, help me to honor where I am today so that I can appreciate where I will be tomorrow. In Jesus’ name.” That prayer is something I know I am going to say (on top of my many other conversations with God) so that I can motivate myself to keep pushing through no matter what, until I get to the other side of that wall. I know I can make it and I’m not giving up, you shouldn’t either!

I love how I strike up conversations with people that lead to thought provoking moments of revelation. It happens a lot with me but usually when I don’t even realize that it was something that I needed to hear. Today I was talking to a lady who I have had interaction with for a while now. I wouldn’t really call us friends but every now and then she imparts words of wisdom. It wasn’t any different today when she pointed out that I am one of those moms that hardly (I’m not going to say never because it wouldn’t be completely true) does anything solely for herself.

She had mentioned that when I get some extra money I should treat myself to something and I launched into my usual rationalization about how I couldn’t possibly buy something for me without at least first making sure my daughter has absolutely all that she needs (not everything she wants but needs) in the near future. She started telling me about how she used to be that way and that when her kids were grown they didn’t really remember any of the things that she gave up for herself or what she sacrificed but mostly what they remembered was the love that she gave them and the time that she spent with them. She pointed out that it wouldn’t hurt my daughter or make her feel any less loved to take care of me every once and a while.

I knew she was right but I couldn’t help feeling guilt at the slightest thought of buying something for me that didn’t somehow benefit my daughter as well. I am trying to figure out where this feeling of guilt comes from, as if I don’t deserve to have anything for myself if it means I have to deny something for her. It makes me think of what they say when you are on a plane (or what I’ve heard that they say because I have never been on a plane) when they warn you that if something should happen that parents are to put on their oxygen mask first. If you don’t put your mask on first you take the risk of something happening to you before you are able to help your child. It’s the same in life on a regular basis.

You have to take care of you because if you don’t then you won’t be able to effectively take care of your child. Taking care of you does not just extend to making sure that you are healthy and that you eat but also to making sure that you are happy and mentally in a place of peace. I don’t really remember what life is like without my child around me. Sometimes I miss being just me instead of just a mom. I guess from the beginning I have always tried to be the mother I didn’t have and I’ve always had to overcompensate in one area for certain things that my daughter might not have been receiving in another one.

It was a habit that I started when she was born, trying to be the very best mother I could be, alone, and I suppose at that time, I felt like I had to chose between me or her and of course it was always going to be her. However, as she has gotten older and as I have watched other mothers have that balance that I wasn’t sure how to get, I realize that it doesn’t have to be either me or her, that it can be both and that sometimes it is actually okay for me not to neglect me and that I don’t have to feel guilty about that. Now I am not going to say that the feeling of guilt when I do something that is just for me won’t still be there when I try to take steps towards taking better care of me, but that certainly doesn’t mean that I am not going to try. I hope that all of you out there are taking care of yourselves and if you’re not, now is as good a time as any to start.

I was reading an article in the Writer’s Magazine about how hard it is when you are writing something that is personal and that closely mirrors your own experiences somehow, even if it was a piece of fiction that was loosely based on your own truth. It occurred to me after reading this article that this could definitely be the reason that I can not seem to finish my current novel that I am working on.

When I think about it, I haven’t lost the passion for my current novel, I haven’t become bored with the story, I haven’t become tired of the characters, in fact it is quite frustrating that I have so much passion for this unfinished novel and yet I can not seem to actually finish it. Now granted I have many things that legitimately take up my time like being a mother, being back in school and working on my master’s degree, working on writing articles and this blog as well as publishing my magazine. However, having other responsibilities has never stopped me before in finishing something.

Sitting and thinking about it, what is really holding up the process, I am now almost convinced that it has more so to do with my next novel that I am planning to write then the actual novel I am trying to finish. My next novel (not revealing the title just yet), while fictionally written, will not just be loosely based on my own personal life, but it will actually touch on a large part of my childhood and the tumultuous relationship that I have with my mother and the emotional baggage that I have when it comes to her. Even though I am fictionalizing the story quite a bit, the premise is going to touch on a lot of emotions that I am ambiguous about dealing with.

I feel like it is a novel that I need to write to work through some things and it is one that it took me a long time to even be ready to write and I have to wonder if this stalling tactic is somehow a sign that I am not as ready to write it as I thought I was. But when I think about it, I am ready but then I’m still not sure if I really am. My first novel, The Diary: Succession of Lies, took a lot out of me to write because it was extremely personal to me as well and it also took some time for me to get through writing it because I was writing through a painful time.

One would think that to write your pain out on the page it would be simple and that it would flow like a river of water. I think that there is this myth that writing the personal stories takes less time and that it is somehow easier to do. While this may in fact be true for some there are countless stories that I have read of other writers who struggled the most on the work that was more closely related to their personal experiences. Ironically, the personal stories, or the fiction stories that are based in truth, are usually the best ones. There is heart in those stories and they become more relatable to others because someone else may be experiencing the same things that you have already gone through.

I write for many reasons but in large part because I know I can’t be the only one experiencing some of the things that I have gone through. If I can touch even just one person then I have served a purpose with my words and that is all I really want to do. In fixing what is wrong you have to first understand what the problem truly is. Now that I have identified the problem in why I am stuck in this novel and held back from starting the next, I think I can do something to change. If you are stuck maybe it’s time that you stop to figure out the real reason that has you stalled.

When I start to think of a special place to be able to write my mind starts to wonder off and think of the places that would be special to me that I can’t really get to right now. What a dream it would be to sit in a coffee shop or restaurant in New York somewhere (preferably Manhattan) or even on a park bench in Central Park. Or how wonderful it would be to sit in a café in ParisFrance or to sit somewhere inside the LouvreMuseum and soak up all of the artistic inspiration. I can even imagine sitting in some Italian villa by the water and taking in the scenery while I let my characters fill the pages with their stories. Unfortunately, that is not my present reality.

When I was younger I used to be able to write anywhere, no matter what my surroundings were. I was able to block out all of the outside noise and I would even be able to tune out all of the negativity that was taking place around me. For hours I would just write and write, and read, and then write again. It wasn’t so hard then to focus my thoughts and the story ideas that kept creeping their way into my mind. I didn’t need quiet for concentration (although too much quiet makes me unable to write as well), nor did I need a breathtaking atmosphere. All I needed was my pen and my notebook and the rest would pretty much take care of itself. I would really like to get back to that but I am not sure that it is a possibility.

When I am at home, sitting at my desk, there might eventually be some writing that gets done but only if I don’t think about the laundry that needs to be washed, or the dinner that needs to be cooked, or the homework that my daughter needs to finish up, or the homework that I need to finish, or the cleaning that needs to be done, or the groceries that I need to go buy, or the bills that are behind and need to be paid. After everything else that has to be done in the house I am usually too tired and drained to write. So where can I go to just sit and write and be productive in getting my work done.

I must admit that I get a lot of writing done sitting in a Starbucks (doesn’t really matter which one) but the problem with that is the aroma of all of the coffee that my budget doesn’t allow me to buy. It really is torture to sit in a coffee shop and not be able to drink any coffee. Some would say that there’s always the library but for some reason being surrounded by thousands and thousands of books doesn’t actually make me want to sit and write but rather go pick out books to read.

I need a place to write that allows me to only think about my characters and their story; a place where the words will just flow without a struggle and where I almost can’t stop the words from coming. For now I’ll just have to make what I have work for me instead of allowing it to work against me.

We all have those days where we’ve been running around, doing errands, taking care of other responsibilities, and we are just too tired to write. Of course almost every piece of writing advice says that you should write everyday, no matter what, even if it is just a paragraph or it’s only for fifteen minutes. In most cases I agree with that piece of advice and I try to adhere to that but there are just times when not only your body is tired but your mind is exhausted. In these cases you might find that you simply can not write (at least not anything that would make any kind of sense). This is when the guilt comes in.

You start to feel like if you were really a good writer then you would just suck it up and put some words on the page already. You start to think about those people who put out ten books in a year (at least I do) and beat yourself up because clearly they didn’t let their being tired stop their productivity. I know that I for one feel completely terrible when I don’t write and I feel even worse when the ideas are there in my head but they just won’t come into focus.

Over the years I have tried not to beat myself up so much when I can’t write. For some people, they can push through and power forward, even when their mind is stuck or when their thoughts are running wild with too many ideas. There are those who are really good at not letting that keep them from putting the words on the page anyway.

However, there are other types of people (like myself) that just can’t write that way. We can’t make ourselves write when we know what will be written is what we would consider garbage. We can’t write when our thoughts aren’t focused and we can’t get the words out when our minds are exhausted. It doesn’t make us any less of a writer nor does it make us any less passionate about what we want to do with our writing.

Sometimes we just need to rest. So often when people in general are tired they keep going until the point of pure exhaustion and if we don’t take those moments that are necessary to rest we will burn out. Sometimes the rest makes us produce better quality work and possibly even more passion for the project than we had before.

Sometimes when we travel on our journey we get so caught up in progressing forward that we forget to stop along the way and recharge. Without the energy to carry on we are no good to anyone, least of all ourselves. Rest and recharge if need be. The work will be there when your mind is fresh. Don’t feel guilty for taking a pit stop every once and a while.

I can think of about a dozen people who I admire. People whose success I would love to have. People whose life seems so ideal and who I wish I could be like in one way or another. I think that we all have those days where there is someone who we wouldn’t mind trading places with, even for a day. However, we can only ever be ourselves and we have to learn to be the best person that we can be.

People always declare how you should be an original version of yourself and not a bad imitation of someone else. You’re supposed to achieve the level of success you want by remaining true to who you are and not copying anyone else. I definitely believe that a person should always be who they are but being original can be tricky.

There is always the risk that someone won’t be accepting of you or what you do and as a writer, while it is not important for everyone to like you or your writing you have to be accepted on some level to be successful. The thing is, I am me, I am who I am, love me or hate, take it or leave it, and I won’t apologize for it. However, sometimes there are days when I feel like being myself is either not good enough for people or that people just can’t handle who I really am.

I know you’re not supposed to care about who accepts you and who doesn’t but what if I do care? What if I want people to care about my words and my feelings and what I’m going through? What if I want people to listen to what I have to say and what my ideas are and not dismiss them as if they don’t matter? What if I want people to accept me, flaws and all, and stop wishing that I was something that I am not?

Writers are typically thought of as different, and weird, and isolated but that doesn’t mean we want to be. I am definitely not like a lot of other people and I have spent a large part of my adolescent years trying to be what everyone else wanted me to be, never really being who I was. Sometimes it seems like in finally being who I am and not trying to be some version of somebody else I end up standing alone a lot of the time. I wonder whether or not I should have just kept being the copy everyone seemed to like better. Have you ever felt like being yourself just wasn’t good enough?